Dr. Anne shook her head. "Nothing yet that I know of."

Clare sighed. "That's what I thought. I figured Russ-someone would call if anything turned up." She looked past Church Street 's steady stream of commuter traffic, headed for Glens Falls or the Northway. The park appeared much less magical in the strong morning sun. "I keep going over Sunday night in my head, wondering what I could have done to prevent it. Should I have dragged him over to the party? Gone home early? Left someone to watch over him?" She reached for the back of her head, ready to repin falling pieces of hair, but this early in the day her twist was still inviolate.

"At the risk of sounding like a broken record, it's just as likely he trashed the place and went off."

Clare shook her head. "No."

Dr. Anne started down the sidewalk. "Sometimes I think you carry this look-for-the-good-in-all-people thing too far," she said over her shoulder.

"I know," Clare said. "It's an occupational hazard."

It was a typical Wednesday morning, ten communicants, if she counted herself and Colin. No one, thank God, wanted to linger and chat about last Sunday's events, and she was disrobing in the sacristy five minutes after she had dismissed her flock.

In the office, Lois greeted her with a hymn. "Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war," the secretary sang, "with the hel-i-cop-ters, flying on before."

Clare peeked into the tiny hole-in-the-wall that was the deacon's office. No one was there yet. "It's no wonder Elizabeth thinks we're both deranged."

Lois rolled her eyes. "I think the National Guard ought to pay me for putting up with that woman while you're gone."

"What happened?"

"She wanted to know what I thought of you taking up with Chief Van Alstyne again."

"Taking up with-?"

"I told her I don't gossip and I don't care to listen to those who do. Then, of course, she was sweet as cream, saying she was just worried about people thinking it a scandal. I told her the only scandal would be if you let the best man in Millers Kill get away." She leaned on one elbow and pointed the letter opener at Clare. "Which is not to say I don't give a thumbs-up to Hugh Parteger. He has lovely manners, and he makes five or six times what the chief of police does."

"Maybe you should ask him out, then. I don't think he's going to be calling me anymore. Not after this past weekend."

Lois pulled a stack of pink phone messages free from a spiked note keeper. She selected one and held it up. "I don't know about that. He phoned three times. Wants to talk with you soonest."

Clare groaned. "Please tell me there are a lot of work-related messages I have to return first."

"The bishop wants you to call. Her Holiness was complaining to him about your having a dangerous criminal in the rectory, that sort of thing. And he wants to know why you're in the paper. Again."

"I'm in the paper?"

"There was a story about the break-in and poor Señor Esfuentes's disappearance in the Post-Star. It doesn't mention him by name-I suppose they have to find his next of kin and all, poor souls-but you're featured front and center. That reporter called for a statement."

"Ben Beagle?"

"Mmm-hmm. I told him you were away, preparing to defend the freedom of the press with your life."

"You didn't."

"Well, no, not in those words. I did tell him it was National Guard duty." She plucked a pink message slip off the spike and rattled it between her long fingers. "I swear, that rag's getting no better than one of the tabloids. Made it sound as if none of us are safe in our beds. Well, none of us who might be Hispanic."

Clare held out her hand for the rest of the pink message slips. "I suppose I should count my blessings. At least Elizabeth isn't holding a press conference about my scandalous carryings-on. Yet."

"I heard poor Mr. Parteger was left kicking his heels on the sideline while you and Chief Van Alstyne danced all night."

"I thought you never listened to gossip?"

"I never repeat it. I can't help it if people like to confide in me. It's the job. Sooner or later, the church secretary hears everything."

Clare squared her shoulders. "The chief and I danced for two songs. If we were on the floor for more than eight minutes I'd be surprised."

Lois smiled widely. "You're blushing."

"I am not." Clare resisted covering her cheeks. "Would you please call the IGA with the usual order of lunch things for the vestry meeting?"

"Yes, I will."

Clare fled the office with Lois still smiling like the owner of a dumb dog who has just learned a new trick.

At her own desk, Clare poured a mug of her home-brewed coffee and dug right in to answering the messages that had accumulated in her absence. After she had returned most of the calls, she applied herself to the proposals for fall projects the vestry would be discussing at today's lunchtime meeting. The pink message notes from the bishop and Ben Beagle and Hugh glowered at her whenever she glanced away from her paperwork. For once, it was a relief to have Lois buzz her about the vestry meeting.

"It's time," the secretary said. "The deacon is already in there with copies of the agenda and the proposals."

The babble of voices from the meeting room died away when she came through the door. With linen-fold paneling and diamond-paned windows, high-backed chairs and a threadbare Aubusson rug, it had been the best Tudor copy that 1860s technology could buy. Perhaps the builders of St. Alban's had wanted to salute Henry VIII, the founder of the church.

"Hello, everyone." They had left a place for her at the head of the black oak table. Without any formal plan or discussion, the vestry always seemed to arrange themselves in the same way. Robert Corlew, the senior warden, sat at Clare's left, with Terrance McKellan supporting him, in much the same way that Terry's bank supported Corlew's developments. On her right, junior warden Geoffrey Burns held his position opposite Corlew; lawyer versus contractor, forty versus sixty, thinning hair versus toupee.

At least she thought that pelt on Corlew's head was a rug.

Mrs. Henry Marshall, bright-eyed and brilliantly lipsticked, sat between Burns and Norm Madsen. Mrs. Marshall was Clare's most faithful ally on the vestry, tart-voiced and decisive, while Mr. Madsen was the one who always saw every side to an issue. Faith, here's an equivocator, that could swear in both scales against either.

Clare snagged a Coke off the sideboard and dropped into her chair.

Sterling Sumner, retired architect and sometime lecturer at Skidmore College, sat across the long expanse of the table from Clare, about as far from Corlew as possible. He was sliding the usual platter of sandwiches and chips to Elizabeth de Groot, who was at his right hand. They had discovered they shared similar tastes in buildings (historic), liturgy (formal), and literature (nothing written after 1890). Clare wasn't sure if Elizabeth knew she and Sumner also shared similar tastes in men.

The platter reached Terry McKellan, who glanced up and down the seats before taking two sandwiches and chips each. His wife had him on a diet, which had turned the finance officer into a stealth eater. Clare thought he looked like a guilty English sheepdog stealing food off the counter.

Robert Corlew took a sandwich and slid the platter toward Clare. She dropped what she hoped was chicken salad on whole wheat on a napkin. "Since this is the last meeting before we pick up again in September, let's get right to it." She spread her hands, inviting them to prayer. "Lord God," she said, "help us to discern your will, and discerning, to serve your people, to the glory and honor of your name. Amen." Short but serviceable. "Okay, Looking at the first item, a proposal to turn volunteer education director Gail Jones's job into a part-time paid position-"